John Shepherd

John is CEO and main shareholder of the Whiteburn group, a niche property development company, specialising in rehabilitating sensitive urban sites across Scotland, for a variety of residential and commercial end uses.

Whiteburn’s development of The Tun, a 50,000 sqft office building hewn out of a former brewery in Holyrood, to house the BBC, British Council and European and Parliament office, earned a BCO award for the best commercial workplace in the UK in 2003. John painstakingly assembled the former Cowgate fire site (SoCo) to create a 250 bed hotel led mixed use redevelopment in Old Town Edinburgh’s World Heritage area, completed with partners Jansons in 2014.

Whiteburn’s residential conversion of the 45 unit Parkview School site in Dundee, earned a number of awards and Whiteburn have recently secured consent for a 100,000 sqft foot office building behind a retained listed facade on Waterloo St in Glasgow.

John has chaired the BCO Scottish awards panel, sits on the Scottish Property Federation heritage liaison committee and is former Chairman of Northern Housing Company, Hillcrest’s HA’s mid-market rent subsidiary.